Oxford Pharmascience (LON:OXP) this morning revealed it had taken a “significant step forward” in the development of OXPzero, developed to mask the taste of the ibuprofen. Today it announced it has completed the successful first-stage commercial scale up work for the product.

The company’s collaboration with a contract manufacturer has created a taste- masked ibuprofen in a batch that is both scalable and suitable for product registration, OXP said.

The group, working with co-development partner Hermes, will now carry out a clinical trial to demonstrate bio-equivalence of the taste-masked painkiller. This is essentially designed to show that that OXP developed product has the same (or bio-equivalent) effect as standard un-masked ibuprofen. The results of this trial are expected in the first quarter of next year.

Oxford Pharmascience chief executive Nigel Theobald: This is a significant step forward in the commercialisation of our OXPzero technology.

“We now have a robust scalable production process and can make GMP grade material which is essential for use in human studies.

“Having already demonstrated commercial success for our OXPchew technology, with sales growing in Brazil through Aché and partners like Bayer signed, this milestone shows we are making excellent progress towards the commercialisation of our OXPzero taste masking technology.”

The global ibuprofen market is worth US$2.7bn and dominated by tablet formulations due to the bitterness and burning sensation of pure ibuprofen.

OXPzero will allow major brands to formulate high dose non-tablet products, without any burn.

“This milestone is another positive step forward in our confidence that OXPzero will become the leading taste masking technology for all non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, Theobald added.